


The Champions

by ProfessorRex



Category: DC Animated Universe, DCU (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Spider-Man - All Media Types, Static Shock, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Crime Fighting, Crossover, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 04:30:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8387251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorRex/pseuds/ProfessorRex
Summary: What happens when the multiverse fractures, and pulls five young heroes from their home dimensions and strands them in a world they've never seen? They form a super team of course.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was spawned after a watching of Suicide Squad. My response was essentially "I could make a better super team than that."

The Champions

_Earth-12,_ _ Dakota City, The Abandoned Gas Station Of Solitude: Virgil Hawkins AKA Static _

             On the outskirts of Dakota city there lay a gas station. It's foundations had rusted to a dingy brown, and it's pumps were cracked and rusty. The petrol they had once carried dried up long ago, and the puddles of fuel that remained were the color of regret.  In short, it was absolutely worthless, a place to pass by and forget about. Virgil Hawkins, and Richard Foley called the place home.

             Virgil was headed back to the gas station after a long day of school, sexual frustration, fighting bang babies, and generally being Dakota city’s dopest superhero. He cruised the skies atop his electromagnetically levitated trashcan lid, his black trenchcoat flapping behind him in a most epic fashion. He came to a stop in front of the Gas Station Of Solitude and leapt off of his trashcan lid, tucking it under his arm carefully. It wasn’t the Batmobile but it got him to where he needed to be.

             He pushed open the door to the gas station, and stepped through the doorway. The interior was a small room with four walls that had once probably been a dark blue, time had faded them into a color Virgil was calling ‘muted ugly’. Old oil cans had been pushed into a corner, and stacked into a pyramid, while stacks of tires served as chairs. It had it’s charms though, Virgil had managed to find a sofa, and breakfast table that really tied the room together.

            “Yo Virg, how was the patrol?” a young man with blonde hair and glasses was sitting at the breakfast table that saved the room. He was wearing a green and white sleeveless bodysuit. There was a high tech bicycle helmet sitting next to him on the table, and his feet were propped up on the table, while he was flicking through a comic book. “Anything interesting happen?”

            “Oh you know, the usual.” Virgil took the seat directly across from him, removing his mask and propping his feet on the desk. “Hotstreak was having a firefight with the cops, Ebon tried to plunge the city into total darkness, and Frieda still wont let me get past second base. So yeah, I’ve had better days. What about you Rich?”

            “Backpack detected some weird radiation earlier, so I’ve got it running a full scan over the city to see if we can lockdown a source. We haven’t gotten a ping yet, but it should be done scanning soon. Could just be Alva Industries running a weird experiment, but better safe than sorry. And really Virg? Boo hoo, you’re smoking hot girlfriend won’t let you get past second base. My heart bleeds for you.”  

            “Richie.” Virgil tilted his head back and exhaled loudly, and looked across the table at his best friend. “I’m gonna be more worried if it is Alva Industries. Edwin Alva is like Lex Luthor with twice the hair and half the ethics. The second backpack gets a ping let me know.” Virgil looked across the table and smirked raising his eyebrows. “What do you know about how hot my girlfriend is? You don’t even like girls.”

            Richie put his elbow on the table, and it wobbled before he rested his chin on the palm of his hand. “Virgil. I’m gay, I’m not blind and Frieda is smoking hot, anyone with working eyes could tell you that, so take a minute to appreciate that you even got to second base, because dude? She is way out of your league.” He adjusted his glasses and pushed them up the bridge of his nose. “It has to be the hero thing.”

            Virgil leaned forward putting his hands under his chin, lacing his fingers together and  staring at his friend from behind the curtain of dreads that hung in front of his eyes. “Richard, are you implying that Frieda wouldn’t be with me if I wasn’t a superhero?”

            Richie returned the glare full force. “Why yes Virgil, I am.”

            For half a second the tension in the room was thick enough slow down Barry Allen. Then the atmosphere was shattered by laughter, Richie and Virgil had tears in their eyes as they were doubled over in their seats.“Ok yeah, you got me there. She is way out of my league, this superhero thing has some serious perks.”

            Richie’s helmet started beeping, and Richie reached out for it taking it in his hands, and pulling it on. The holographic interface flared on and began projecting data in front of Richie, holographic chart and graphs appearing. “Backpack finally got a source on that weird radiation from earlier.”

             Virgil stopped laughing and leaned forward looking at his friend. “So where’s it coming from? Is it Alva?” Virgil brought his hands together, absently making sparks of static jump between his fingers,

             Richie looked over at him, uncertainty written across his face, “Virgil, it’s coming from you.”

            The universe it seemed had an excellent sense of dramatic timing. The air was filled with the sound of loud crackling, and bolts of electricity began dancing across Virgil’s skin. It hissed and arced across his body, surrounding him in a cage of lighting. It created an intense electromagnetic field around his body. and the stacks of old oil cans floated in the air around him.

           “Geez Virg, Frieda’s not too hot for you! It’s not that serious, turn off the sparks!” Richie’s belt began pulling him towards Virgil and the holographic display in his helmet began going haywire, Richie grabbed a tire and discharged the excess electricity out of his body“Virgil! Power down!”

           “I can’t Rich! It’s not me!” Virgil concentrated on his power, and to no avail tried to power down. He closed his eyes, clenched his fist and began taking deep breaths. With each breath out he felt a pulse of energy leave his body, and with breath in he felt more of his power returning. He took deep breaths in and out, with each breath in he called back more of the power into him. He repeated the process till his eyes were glowing white with power, it was more energy than his body had ever held, and he knew he couldn’t contain it.

           Virgil gave his friend one last glance, and through it all he smiled, and waved turning to run out of the door. He called his trashcan lid to him and jumped on, Virgil surfed the electromagnetic waves ever higher, using his excess of power to propel him higher than he’d ever been. till he was part of the Dakota skyline. When he reached his apex all the power came surging out of him like a bolt of lightning. A massive blast of electromagnetic energy ripped through Dakota, and at the center of that blast Virgil Hawkins was no more.

_Earth-616, Jersey City  New Jersey: Kamala Khan AKA Ms. Marvel_

           “Hey it’s Ms Marvel!”

           “You go Ms. M!”

           “We love you Ms. Marvel!”

            Kamala couldn’t stop the smile from blossoming across her face, and even if she could why on earth would she want to do that? As the red and blue clad heroine ran across the rooftops of Jersey City, the citizens called out to her from below. She looked down and waved as she embiggened her legs, to stretch across the gaps between buildings.

            It had almost been a year since she started being Ms Marvel, and it was the most insane time of her life, first she got sprayed with Terrigen Mist, then she fought Thomas Edison while he was in the body of a giant anthropomorphic pigeon, and best of all she got to team up with Wolverine and Spider-Man! Sure it wasn’t at the same time, but what were the odds she would get to meet the two stars of the superhero fanfic she was working on? No one was going to be able to say her characters were ooc ever again. Being Ms. Marvel wasn’t the easiest job, but it was certainly the most rewarding.

           If there was one thing though that Kamala loved about being Ms. Marvel more than anything else, it was that she got to help her city. Kamala loved the fun of being a hero, but it couldn’t hold a candle to the warm and fuzzy feeling that exploded in her belly whenever she helped someone.

          Which is why when Kamala heard a cry for help, she stopped running, and immediately looked for the source of the call, she embiggened her ears, quadrupling their size, and tuned into the sound. She followed her giant ears, taking giant leaps across rooftops with her embiggened legs, till she came to the source.

          A little boy who couldn’t have been more than six years old stood by himself on an empty street crying his little eyes out. In a moment of slipped professionalism, Kamala couldn’t help but notice how cute and ugly the kid was. His hair was red enough that he could have been a host for the Phoenix Force, and he had the misfortune of having it styled (using the term loosely) into a bowl cut. He had big floppy ears that poked out from beneath the bowl of tomato bisque atop his head. (Seriously who does that to their child?), and it looked like his freckles were just thrown on his face by a god who was too tired to care..

         The kid hadn’t noticed her arrival, so Kamala took a knee in front of him, bringing herself to his eye level and asked “What’s wrong little guy?” He looked at her with watery eyes, and a little nose dripping with snot.

         “Ms. Marvel?” His teary eyes had gone wide, and he couldn’t stop himself from squealing in glee.

         “You know it.” The kid had gone from a lowly sack of sadness to star struck in seconds, and Kamala openly giggled as he bounced around her in joy. He was asking her a million and one questions, about her powers, her secret identity, all questions that Kamala couldn’t answer, before finally settling on one she could.

         “Ms. Marvel can you help me?”

        “That is what I do little guy, so why were you crying?”

        “Because Eddie Blake told me I was ugly, then all our friends laughed me, except for my best friend Daniel, but he didn’t say anything either. Now that you’re here you can tell them that I’m not ugly, and then you can punch Eddie Blake right in the face!”

          Kamala listened to him like he was Nick Fury, he had her full attention and when he was done she asked. “Do You think you’re ugly?”

         “No.” He said looking at her with head tilted.

         “Then that’s all that matters.” Kamala put a hand on his head and mussed his hair till it didn’t look like a bowl of tomato bisque. “Sometimes people like making fun of other people because they don’t like themselves, and sometimes they’re just plain old mean. This kid sounds like a real comedian, so remember he’s only using words. Don’t let him see you cry, and if he says something mean again just smile, and say Ms. Marvel thinks I’m beautiful. Now go home, it’s getting late.”

         The boy couldn’t stop grinning, he hugged Kamala’s leg, and ran off screaming in the late afternoon. “Ms. Marvel thinks I’m beautiful!” Kamala smiled, and before she could think about the success of her first after school special, she disappeared.

_Earth-16, El Paso Texas: Jaime Reyes AKA The Blue Beetle._

         Jaime looked up at the sky and watched as the sun dipped lower and lower into the west. He smiled as he thought of fireworks, in the night sky. He heard a sizzle and looked down at the grill, the ribs had just begun, to turn the right color, and soon they’d be ready for barbecue sauce

        “ _Jaime Reyes, what is the purpose of this ritual_ ?”  Ordinarily when people heard voices in their heads it was cause for panic, but for Jaime Reyes it was what he liked to call, _The New Normal._

         It all started when an alien super weapon attached itself to his spine, after a cruel prank left him naked and abandoned in the middle of the desert, suffice to say it gave Jaime an ever expanding definition of normal, which went on to include having conversations with the aforementioned alien superweapon when no one else was around.

        “The purpose of this ritual is to celebrate the day this country gained its independence.” Jaime picked up his grilling fork as he explained, then flipped the ribs over to let them cook evenly, and as they sizzled, Jaime could feel the Scarab gently sending electrical signals along his spine, and to his brain.

        “ _You celebrate your nation’s independence by gorging yourself on the flesh of swine? Incomprehensible, you should gorge yourself on the blood of those you once called master and remind them of your freedom.”_

        The Scarab was a living organism capable of logic and reason, even if it’s logic was particularly cold. In the heat of battle it always recommended to Jaime the most effective and usually lethal course of action. “You know something Scarab? I’m sure that there are a lot of people in this country who would absolutely agree with you like the KKK, Neo Nazis, Donald Trump, Vampires but we’re the good guys, so we don’t gorge ourselves on the blood of anyone but Christ, and that’s just because I’m Catholic.”

_“I do not understand you Jaime Reyes. You use the power I grant  you to protect those around you, your family, your community, your species. This is understandable. As an apex human it is only logical that you protect them so your species can propagate, but you always stop short. You allow your enemies to live, and leave the job incomplete. Your reluctance to kill is illogical.”_

       There was a sizzle as Jaime turned over the pork, and drops of fat hit the burning charcoal beneath. “Scarab, life is sacred. It’s a gift that no one has any right to take away, not me and certainly not you. I don’t kill people, but that’s because I believe in people, I believe in their innate goodness, Besides the good book is pretty clear on it, Thou shalt not kill.”

_“I too have familiarized myself with your good book Jaime Reyes._ _Ezekiel 25:17. The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you._

       “I’m impressed by your knowledge of scripture, but there’s one problem, I’m not a lord.”

_“Then what would you call a man who can fly, and has the power to level mountains?”_

       “Superman probably.”

       The screen door to Jaime’s house opened behind him, and as the hinges creaked he could hear the light footsteps of his mother coming near him. He looked back over his shoulder turning his attention away from the grill, putting the fork down, and wiping his bronze colored hands on his apron.

      “Jaime? Who are you talking to?” Her forehead was creased, and her eyes were glancing around the backyard, when they didn’t find anyone they refocused back on her son. She stepped closer, and put a hand on his cheek reaching up to press a warm palm against his face.

      “I was talking to the Scarab, things got a little theological.” He had to tilt his head downward to look at his mother, but the strength of her gaze still made him feel like a very. small child. “It talks to me sometimes, well it actually almost never shuts up.”

        His mother’s gaze didn’t waver, but she did let out a long low sigh. “Jaime you really need to stop speaking aloud to it, Senora Ramirez thinks your crazy, which is a shame her granddaughter is really pretty, and thinks you’re cute.” Jaime cringed and shut his eyes and when he opened them a smirk played across his mother’s lips.

      “Mami.” His voice lowered to an almost fearful whisper as he stared at the back door. “Y-you know I don’t like girls.”

      His mother nodded her head right along as he spoke. “Si, but you make me keep it a secret from your father and the rest of the family, so I am going to tease you about it.”

      Jaime never bothered keeping the superhero thing from his family, and really who would? It made his life a lot easier, ‘Sorry I’m late Mami, I had to stop Animal-Vegetable-Mineral-Man from stomping on the downtown mall, I got the eggs you wanted.’

      That conversation was easy enough to have, but coming out of the closet? That was something else entirely, something Jaime wasn’t ready for. His mother quite literally smacked him back to reality when her hand lightly, but firmly tapped the side of his cheek.

      “Contrary to what you believe you have a family that loves you unconditionally, and nothing is going to tear us apart.”

_“Jaime Reyes. I’ve detected an anomaly. Tachyon Fluctuations emanating from our location”_

     There was a momentary surge of blinding blue light, a splash of barbecue sauce followed by the ruffling of an apron and Jaime Reyes disappeared from his mother’s arms.

_Earth-1610, Brooklyn New York: Miles Morales A.K.A The Ultimate Spider-Man_

      Miles had seen a lot in his time as Spider-Man, he’d fought a giant woman in an American Civil War, crossed a dimensional barrier, and dated a Hydra sleeper agent, but what he currently saw was beyond his understanding.  There was a massive red T-Rex rampaging through Brooklyn, and it’s eyes were on fire.  

      “Really? Are you actually serious right now?” Miles stood on the rooftop and looked at the creature It’s head was tilted high in the air nostrils flaring sniffing the air, smelling around for something. The Dinosaur was taller than the two story building Miles was standing on, and it moved carelessly stomping on cars and causing a general panic.

     “Somewhere in the next left life Peter Parker is looking down and laughing at me for being dumb enough to become Spider-Man.” Miles leapt off of the roof and with a flick of his wrist released a web line, it anchored to a nearby building and brought Miles careening through the air towards the giant red dinosaur. He tucked his legs into his chest before letting them explode forward into the dino’s jaw. The creature stumbled as Miles landed gracefully on the street in a low crouch. “You probably can’t talk or understand me, but I’m gonna fill the silence with words, because I’m nervous and have never fought a big red dinosaur before, but you should totally stand down and surrender or face the wrath of my mighty web-shooters.”

     The Dinosaur turned it’s head toward him before it roared, windows cracked and it’s eyes came alight again burning literally burning with intense fire.

    “You idiot.”

     Miles looked down and saw a little girl, dressed as… well he wasn’t sure what she was dressed as, but his spider-reflexes took in all the details in a few seconds. She was wearing a bright yellow bicycle helmet, there was a tuft of dark puffy hair sticking out of a hole in the top of it tied up by a single barrett. Miles was immediately reminded of cotton candy.

     The rest of her outfit made Miles think that she repurposed an off brand Minions costume. She had on yellow shorts held by matching suspenders, her arms and legs were covered in blue spandex or whatever the heck they made unitards out of.  She had covered her eyes, in bright yellow goggles and wore a black t-shirt with the image of a full moon printed onto it. There was what looked like a utility belt strapped to her waist, a backpack and a boxing glove on her right hand.

     Miles turned his head to the rampaging Dinosaur, and then back to the girl. In about two seconds he picked her up tucking her under his arm, like she was football and fired a webline swinging away. There was another massive roar followed by heavy thuds and the sounds of concrete splitting. Miles dared to look over his shoulder and he could see the Dinosaur chasing them down, before he felt a sharp jab in his side where he was carrying the little girl.

    She wriggled in his grip squirming to get free, but he couldn’t exactly squeeze tighter what with the proportionate strength of a spider he would have ended up cracking one of her ribs. So he tried reason with her. “Listen up kiddo, you picked a really bad time to play Superhero what with Clifford The Big Red Dino trying to eat Brooklyn. Hmm. You’re probably too young for that reference, but my point is that I need to get you somewhere safe and then deal with Dinosaur over there so stop squirming.”

     The girl sighed, but actually stopped squirming, and then he heard her speak. “His name is Devil Dinosaur. He’s chasing you because he thinks you’re kidnapping me, he won’t be eating anyone, and I’m not playing superheroes. My name is Moon Girl and I’m a superhero, put me down now Spider-Man.”

 

_Earth 1610- Brooklyn New York-Lunella Lafayette A.K.A Moon Girl...Has A Pet Dinosaur._

      Spider-Man set her down gently on the ground and took a defensive stance as the Dinosaur continued charging. “Hey. Moon Girl? Can you work whatever Vulcan mind meld you got with Big Red over there? I really don’t wanna get eaten.”

     Lunella scoffed at Spider-Man, his little detour was going to make her work much harder. The Dinosaur continued it’s rampage charging them down. She absently put up a hand while her other one rummaged through her bag. The Dinosaur came to a full stop and tilted its head at her before snarling at Spider-Man. “Sit, be nice, and don’t eat him.” The Dinosaur growled before doing as she asked thumping the ground with it’s massive weight, it’s tail wagged as it’s intense yellow eyes stared at Spider-Man.

     “Cool. Did you train him to roll over too?” Lunella held up a finger shushing him.

     “You talk too much, so just listen.” She pulled from her bag a Gameboy Color, it had been heavily modified and had an array of antenna and extra battery packs attached to it. “Devil Dinosaur and I have been tracking a series of anomalies, disturbances in our very reality. Something is tearing open the fabric the multiverse and snatching people out of it. Right before a person is taken there’s a massive build up of tachyons at their location which suggest that people aren’t just being ripped from space, but-”

    “Time as well, which would in turn prove the theory of relativity.” Spider-Man finished her sentence and she blinked for a moment before carrying on.

    “Exactly. I’ve been tracking them all day, but they were all too far away and the nearest event was here in Brooklyn, before you carried me away I was right on top of it. Now I have no idea how far away I am.” Her Gameboy let out a soft ping and she looked down at it. “Oh. The Tachyons are still here, and they’re coming from you.”

     There was a pop, and Spider-Man Lunella and Devil Dinosaur we’re all torn from their world leaving behind, nothing but property damage.

_Location Unknown Identity Unknown AKA One Powerful Mama Jama_

    “Well, the pieces are all set. I even got a couple of stragglers, ah well that just makes it more exciting don’t you think? I mean after all how often do you get to see a Red Dinosaur fight Spider-Man? Just wait till they meet the rest of them. It should be fun. Ah, but we need an audience, so do me a favor? Keep reading will you? I need spectators, makes my life easier I’d hate to rip you out of your homes, away from your soft comfy beds never to see your families again. I’ll be watching and so should you. Tune in next week kiddies. Same Bat-Time! Same Bat-Channel!

NANANANANANANANANANANANANANANANANANANANANANA!

I’M YOUR GOD!

 


	2. Welcome to 8008

_Earth 8008- Virgil Hawkins A.K.A Static_

Virgil could feel cold air rushing past him, the cold caressed his cheeks and ran through his long dreads making them whip wildly. He opened his eyes and saw concrete rushing to meet his face, the force of the wind drawing tears from his eyes, and bringing chills to his bones. His survival instincts came to life and he extended his palms. They began to hum and crackle with power, faint blue arcs raced along his hands, watts of power building a tempo as he released them.

Tendrils of energy bolted out of his fingertips and struck the ground with the speed of lightning, letting Virgil sense everything. The electricity was an extension of Virgil’s senses he could feel anything that was a conductor of electricity and anything that could magnetized, from every person to every drop of a dew on all the blades of grass, and anything that he could feel was his to control.

Sometimes, the sheer magnitude overwhelmed him, but Virgil wasn’t focused on the big picture, for now he only needed to survive. He found a manhole cover and enveloped it in his power. It was ripped from the ground, and sailed to it’s new master. Virgil spread his arms and pulled the manhole cover to his chest.

Virgil still had to pull himself out of free fall, he had played enough video games and seen enough movies to know that whenever the pilot with a stalled out engine was stuck in free fall they always pulled up and managed to save themselves at the last second, so why couldn’t he? He channeled energy into the manhole cover he clutched and had his power towing him skyward pulling himself out of his steep dive. The sharp tug in the other direction gave him a momentary whiplash, but the pain was manageable

He pulled himself atop the manhole cover and seated himself to study his new environment, he felt small comfort in being in a city albeit one he didn’t recognize. The streets were clogged and the air was filled with the sound of metropolis, and the familiar scent of sweet pollution. Virgil took it all in. Underneath him he could hear the the shutter of cameras and people yelling as they pointed up at him. He couldn’t fault them, if somebody fell out of the sky in his hometown he’d be a bit curious too.

There was an explosion, and Virgil whipped his neck around to see a plume of smoke and fire rising from the streets beneath him. Stomping through it was an army of robots, they all had a vaguely humanoid shape and Virgil was reminded of the time he had teamed up with Soul Power to stop the evil Professor Menace and his robot army. Even in his head that particular adventure still sounded cheesy. Regardless Virgil smiled as he charged at the robots his fist aglow with electromagnetic power.

“Same shit different universe.”

    Earth 8008- Kamala Khan A.KA Ms. Marvel

Kamala had always been good at math, look at the problem in front of you and solve it, the rules were always the same and you would alway get the same results, so it didn’t take much thought to solve the situation in front of her. Robot men attacking the city? They needed to be punched. Cars and buildings exploding? Clear a path through the debris and rubble for the Firefighters and search and rescue. People running in terror? Encourage them to run away from the robots and stay out of her way. Electric black guy with dreadlocks surfing on a manhole cover through the sky tearing the aforementioned robots apart through what appeared to be through the power of magnetism? Well that wasn’t quite as simple as the usual superhero business but it could be simplified. Electric Man was smashing robots, the robots were bad, so he was probably good, and that was all she needed.

She embiggened her fist till they were the size of ovens.(She found that it was the perfect size for robot punching.)   She shot her fist forward using her powers of elongation to swing her first around like giant flails, smashing and crushing the robots into pieces under the might of her fist. Kamala firmly believed in fighting smart and not hard, this tactic allowed her to maintain a safe distance and still do some quality clobbering.

The only thing that bothered her (besides not having a clue where she was) was that the robots seemed to be attacking the city without any real direction or purpose. It was just smash this and smash that.The sole goal seemed to be property damage.

Kamala felt the ground tremor and shake beneath her feet before she was thrown back by an explosion of dust and concrete behind her. The blast caused the ground she had been standing on to be blown apart. Her arms and fist retracted to back their normal sizes, and she brought a hand to her face and wiped the dust away and got to her feet.

When the dust had settled there was a giant metal worm rising out the ground. It was already taller than a house and was still growing. The strange thing about it (Strange relative to all the other wackiness going on around her) was that it didn’t even look robotic. Unlike everything else she had been fighting it looked completely organic kinda like how the Silver Surfer could be easily distinguished from a Doombot. It was as if somebody had found a giant earthworm deep underground and decided that it would be a great idea to dunk it in adamantium, and make it fight for them. (She made a mental note to write a fanfic about Earthworm Jim being a product of the Weapon X program.)

Her fist embiggened and as they grew she heard the sound of metal grinding against concrete and looked over her shoulder. Electric Man had touched down next to her and took a position at her back as the robots advanced on them. Surrounded on all sides. It was the most spectacularly troperific moment she had ever experienced in her life.

“Hi. I’m Static”

“Ms. Marvel. Do these robots belong one of your archnemeses?”

“Lady, I’m not even from around here.”

“Me neither. Oh well. Bash them now and compare notes later?”

“Absolutely.”

_Earth 8008- Jaime Reyes A.K.A The Blue Beetle_

If Jaime was being completely honest with himself he was more pissed off about missing the 4th of july barbecue his family had been getting ready for. He had accepted that being in the superhero game would make already predisposed to dealing with a certain amount of bullshit. So when the Scarab started shouting into his skull. “Tachyons this and extradimensional that.” He had rolled with it, and on any other day it would have been a mild annoyance at best, but being torn away from family events for superhero business always left a bad taste in his mouth.

The robots shooting at him were receiving the brunt of his frustrations. He was flying through a city he didn’t recognize weaving through it’s skyscrapers leading the battalion of flying robots on a chase around the city. The Scarab was doing most of the work at the moment Jaime had been willing to give it more control of the Beetle Armor since they were fighting robots, and robots couldn’t exactly be murdered.

“Scarab? Where are we? I don’t recognize this city. What does our GPS say?”

Jaime did a barrel roll so that he was flying backwards. Facing the robots. They were humanoid and had guns that appeared to be part of their bodies, extensions of their arms. Jaime could relate, he brought up his hands and watched as they morphed into weapons, twin massive cannons that fired high powered rounds of energy. Jaime liked to call them the Beetle Blasters and they were his main offensive weapon when dealing with robots, or people who were just really tanky.

_“I am uncertain Jaime Reyes. This city is on none of my maps, I have ascertained that we are in the Milky Way Galaxy. Planet Earth, other than that I cannot say, this world’s geography is vastly different than that of your home. It will take more time to pull information from this world’s satellites. I am certain however that we are not in your in your home dimension.”_

He fired volleys of energy scoring direct hits on the robots while the Scarab piloted the armor away from the incoming laser beams from the robot soldiers. Jaime had found that the medium of himself handling offense while the Scarab handled defense worked best for them. The Scarab had much faster reactions and Jaime himself could make sure that they didn’t kill anyone.

“Figures. Alright well you know what to do, this city is under attack. Scan for signs of life tell me if anyone is trapped somewhere that search and rescue can’t reach, any officers in need of backup? You know the drill.”

_“Jaime Reyes, most civilians have presumably evacuated or found shelter. I detect no dead or living. The machine forces seem to be composed of ground troops ravaging the city, and aerial forces defending the perimeter. There are five other organic life forms present, though they would not be considered civilians. Update. Biometric scanning has identified one as an ally, Metahuman Virgil Hawkins code named Static. Elevated heart rate and blood pressure. He is under attack.”_

“Guide me to him.” Jaime took off like a rocket following the course the Scarab had set for him. Jaime didn’t even care that he wasn’t alone in the dimension hopping, Virgil needed help and Jaime had already lost enough friends. It didn’t take him long to find Virgil especially not when he was holding two manhole covers in his magnetic grip and flailing them around like deadly yo-yos of death and slicing through robots.

It occurred to him that Virgil looked different, older and more mature. His hair was much longer and he was taller than the last time Jamie had seen him and he wasn’t fighting crime in an electric blue hoodie for once.

Something was definitely off, but it didn’t matter. Virgil and that chick at his side with the ham hands were quickly getting overwhelmed.

Jaime stayed in the air and charged his Beetle Blasters to full power before raining down mayhem on the advancing robot forces. The Scarab helped him target and every shot was a direct hit so he wasn’t worried about hitting Virgil or his companion. Jaime took a certain amount of joy in the act. He never really got to cut loose like this and test the limits of the suit. God, he loved fighting robots. The Scarab silently approved of his bloodlust.

Jaime was running out of robots to shoot and soon the only thing left to destroy was the giant metal worm, he morphed his Beetle Blasters into twin swords, he had thought about calling them the Beetle Blades, but alliteration was too easy of a rut to fall into. He flew at the worm going stop speed, swinging his blades and he slashed it. It’s hide was tougher than he thought it would be, but he applied my force before cleaving it neatly in two. He retracted his blades and joined Virgil and his companion. Landing on the ground.

“Static. It’s so good to see you hermano. Any idea where we are? I like the new look by the way. I never took you for the trenchcoat kinda guy though.”

“Umm. Have we met? Were you at like a Justice League mixer or something?” Jaime hadn’t been expecting that. Virgil treating him like a stranger was weird, but the notion that either of them being invited to a league mixer was weirder still.

“Dude, The Reach? You and Ty getting experimented on? The Alien Invasion. The team and our super secret HQ in a hollowed out mountain? Any of that ringing a bell?”

Virgil shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry man. Maybe you have me confused with another electric black guy? There are like a ton of us, me, Black Lightning, Black Vulcan, Juice, Sparky, Soul Power. Maybe you’re thinking of one of them?”

“There’s an electric black guy who’s a superhero and he calls himself Soul Power? That’s a little on the nose isn’t it?”

“Eh he’s pretty old school, I’m sure it worked for the time period he was active in. If you think that’s bad he called his car the Soulmobile, and everytime he defeated a criminal he would celebrate by doing his ‘Funky Soul Power Dance’”

“Good lord. At least he stuck to the strength of his brand.”

“Yeah it seems to work out pretty well for Batman. Batcave, batarangs, batmobiles, they all add to the mystique.”

Jaime and Virgil’s conversation was interrupted by the girl who had been fighting alongside Virgil, who Jaime had yet to introduce himself to, he momentarily heard his mother’s voice chastising him for his rudeness.

“Hey sorry to interrupt your riveting discussion on Superhero marketing, but  you know that worms can regenerate right?”

Jaime turned his head to stare at the worm. It hadn’t ever actually stopped squirming, but he had assumed those were final death throes. The two halves began to writhe even more as they began to writhe and regenerate into two separate worms. Jaime readied his Beetle Blasters.

“Okay so this time I’ll avoid cutting.”

There was a clank, followed by a thousand more in repetition. Jaime looked over his shoulder and saw even more robots advancing on their position.

“Oh, and by the way. I’m The Blue Beetle”

_Earth 8008-Miles Morales A.K.A Spider-Man_

“I bet Peter Parker never had to deal with this.” Miles had  been dropped into alternate dimensions before, in his experience the process went something like: Drop into another dimension, meet an alternate version of yourself, punch for a bit, realize your friends and team up to stop the bad guy. Nowhere in that chain of events did it call for running across the rooftops of a random city and getting shot at by flying robots. Nonetheless it was the situation he found himself in.

His feet carried him across the roof of a flatiron building, he could hear the pair of robots firing energy weapons behind him, but his Spider-Sense was doing a wonderful job of guiding his feet away from their blasts. As he reached the apex of the flatiron he leapt off the edge and spun his body around like a football on Sunday. He brought his wrist up and in perfect synchronization fired his web shooters at the robots.

The weblines hit their marks each one anchoring onto the heavy metal chest plates of the robots. With all his proportionate spider strength Miles yanked on his webs and brought the robots careening through the air towards him. When they were within reach he threw his fist into their chests cavities punching clean through the robots.

He felt a buzzing in the base of his skull, his legs began moving in perfect time with his Spider-Sense. He tucked his knees to his chest and did a backward roll as he coasted through the air extending them so that his feet could cling to the building adjacent to the flatiron. He landed in a crouch on the opposing wall and with a flick of both his wrist dropped the robots into the streets below.

“Damn, it feels good to be a spider.”

Miles exhaled and gave himself a moment to think and use his vantage to observe the cityscape. His surrounding showed the signs of battle, he could see plumes of smoke rising in all directions, and the scent of smoke and fire assaulted his sense of smell. Though there was one vital component missing and if he allowed himself to be incredibly cliche (and really what Spider-Person didn’t enjoy indulging in cliches?) tt was far too quiet. Experience taught that in your typical battle for the city situation there would be tons more noises: Sirens, people screaming, gunshots, even some looting here or there, but this city had none of that, just a bunch of cheesy Sci-Fi robots, overturned cars, and a beautiful skyline. It would’ve bothered him if he had more time to think on it, but when he saw robots being hurled through the sky a la Bruce Banner he thought it prudent to investigate.

As he swung to the carnage he briefly wondered if Moon Girl and Devil had a hand in any of the robot bashing before dismissing it, if it was them he would have heard more roaring. Instead of roaring he was treated to the sight of something entirely different.

The benefit of Spider senses and reflexes was that it didn’t take very long to gather and process information. Guy flying around on a manhole cover flinging robots through the sky. Lightning bolt on his chest. Electromagnetism. Kicks ass against metal opponents. Girl stretching and expanding. Altering her bio-mass. Fights like a more clobbering version of Mr. Fantastic. Blue Guy. Energy weapons. Flight. Bladed weapons. Tech Heavy. Stark level equipment. Don’t piss him off. All wearing bright colors and fighting robots. Heroes. Completely surrounded on all sides by robots. Could probably use hand. Big ass metal worms. Weird as fuck.

Miles swung in on a web line firing webbing at the feet of the robots tripping them up, the other heroes got over the momentary shock and capitalized. Blue Guy firing his energy weapons and Electric Man crumpling robots like tissue paper with the force of magnetism. Stretchy Lass was preoccupied with two giant metal worms, she was holding them down against the ground her hands were the size of cars. Miles leaped across the battlefield to her and without having to ask she moved her hands away so that he could cover the robo worms in webbing forcing them to hold still.

She turned to him, there was a flash of recognition on her face, then it twisted to incomprehension or at least that’s how he interpreted it. Half her face was covered in a mask. “Spider-Man?”

Miles could practically hear the question mark at the end of that, but by now he was used to people questioning his legitimacy as Spider-Man. “Yeah, but probably not the one you know. But yes, I am Spider-Man, the new hotness.”

_Earth 8008-Lunella Lafayette A.K.A Moon Girl_

Lunella had never bought into the idea that in order to be a Superhero you had to excell at punching people, then again she had never aspired to being a superhero. Getting hit with Terrigen gas, and being saddled with a giant red Dinosaur had sort of forced her into the role though. Still, as a hero she tended to employ brain, and if something needed to be punched that’s what Devil Dinosaur was for. The Dino was amusing himself with the destruction of robots, but that wasn’t important at the moment.

She was up to her elbows in robot parts, while Devil Dinosaur kept the other attacking robot’s at bay. It gave her space to think and examine the designs of the robots and figure out what made them tick. She was annoyed by the lack of proper lab equipment, but she could make due with her toolbelt.

The robots were primitive in aesthetics, they reminded her of the garish old science fiction films her father loved, their internal workings were more complex, but all the circuits told a story, one that she was practiced at reading. The soldering made clear that these were products of mass production. Which lead her to wonder what places in this city had the capacity for something like that, and which could have been done without notice. She had a place to start.

She stood up and whistled, and Devil Dinosaur came running, stomping his way over to her. He opened his massive jaws and closed them gently picking her up by the collar and put her on his back.

“Devil, I need you to find Spider-Man” Lunella had zero doubts about Devil Dinosaur’s ability to find Spider-Man, she was certain the smell of spandex and sweat would be enough to guide him along. She was not at all thrilled about Spider-Man being her first superhero team up. Mostly because he hadn’t seemed that interested in teaming up with her. They had been together when they first got dropped into this alternate universe, but when the explosions started he told her “Get somewhere safe” and swung off to be a hero.

She was a genius and had a hellish T-Rex at her beck and call safety wasn’t an issue, but she was quite used to people being dismissive of her because of her age. It was still infuriating though. She crawled her way up the Dinosaur’s spine till she was sitting in the in the crook of his neck between his shoulders and skull. Devil Dinosaur stomped his way through the mostly desolate city.

She could hear sounds of a battle, the crunch of metal, humming of electricity even the discharge of energy, it had to be a fight. Without having to be asked Devil Dinosaur began to run. Luna could feel her heart beating, or maybe it was Devil’s heart, she could never tell. To the passerby it would have looked like an insane little girl riding a slightly less insane T-Rex. In reality Lunella could feel herself slipping, she couldn’t tell if she was the Dinosaur or the girl riding the Dinosaur as both their mind melded into one.

A grin tugged at the edges of their lips as they charged into their first multi superhero battle, the Spider and others they didn’t recognize were fighting back. Machines, there were so many machines just like the others clunky and garish all the elegance hidden within. They snapped their jaws, ripping more of the machines in half. The crunch of metal under their feet was oh so satisfying.

“Is that a red T-Rex?”

“I really didn’t want to fight a T-Rex.”

“I’m not murdering the T-Rex.”

“Dude? Who said anything about murder? If you hadn’t noticed there’s a little girl riding on the back of that thing, she’s basically my sidekick and she controls the dinosaur so they’re on our side.”

Lunella could feel her mind separating from Devil’s,` their shared consciousness fading apart back into their own bodies. The proverbial dust had settled and there didn’t seem to be an impending robot threat. Devil walked her over to where the other superheroes stood, a semi-circle of awkwardness already forming. Devil lowered his head to them almost as if he was bowing, but in reality he was just making it easier for Lunella to step down and greet the others.

“My name is Moon Girl, and I’m no one’s sidekick.”

_ Earth 8008-The Champions _

“So.” Static was the first to speak. “Would any of you happen to be this city’s superhero? Because I’m dying for some answers.”

Lunella raised her hand and called their attention by clearing her throat. “I suspect that none of us are from around here, while in Spider-Man’s home dimension I was tracking the anomaly and then we were ripped from his dimension and transplanted into this one.” To her immediate surprise none of the people present dismissed her for her age.

Blue Beetle spoke next. “That checks out with what my scanners picked up. The geography of this world is entirely different from my own. Similar biomes but entirely different land masses. Not sure if this world has internet, or any of yours for that matter. I'm not picking up WiFi, and I always get WiFi. Um do your dimensions have internet?”

His question was met with a resounding “Yes” before Spider-Man chimed in.

“Well, that's odd, but it's not the end of the world, but this empty city might actually be that. We need to find the people that were here. Any ideas?”

The group went silent for a moment, but Static took it as his moment to speak. “I don't have any way of helping with that other than an aerial scan of the city, but I get the impression that Blue Beetle could do it faster. I think these robots need to be dealt with, they appear to be limitless and we gotta shut them down somehow. If I take one apart I might be able to handle that but it cou-”

He was cut off by Moon Girl. “I've already done that. Their insides have revealed to me their secrets. These robots were mass produced and if it was done locally then we'd need to find a facility capable of that level of productions. If it wasn't then we'd have more time between waves. So I'm thinking this is being done locally. If we were able to find a production facility of that size then  we might be able to end these robots at their source.”

“Well if we go to the source and take out whoever did this then it stands to reason they might be able to tell us what happened to this place’s citizens, but how do we find something like that?” Ms. Marvel chimed in.  

“I think I can handle that. Part of my powers is manipulation of ambient of electromagnetic radiation. It was hard to focus on during the fighting, but there is a steady signal getting pinged back and forth from the robots I bet it'll lead us to that production center. I'll follow it and you guys follow me.” Static used his power to bring a manhole cover to him and stood on it. Devil Dinosaur gently grabbed Moon Girl and took her in his might maw placing her on his back. Ms. Marvel embiggened her legs to take massive strides, while Blue Beetle took the skies and Spider-Man slung his webs.

_Earth 8008-The Lair Of Doctor Rust_

A man in a worn brown labcoat sat before a wall of monitors each one giving him a different view city. He'd been captivated watching for sometime as his robot army had been laid to waste by the appearance of five beings he could only describe as heroes. A feeling crawled up from the pit of his stomach as he watched them one by one. He had never felt butterflies before but he would bet everything that this was the feeling. They destroyed his creations with ease and using a combination of ability and intellect they were zeroing in on his location.

Doctor Rust found it hard to contain himself. Difficult to restrain his hope that after all this time. Maybe just maybe he would be given a challenge.


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

_Earth 8008-The Lair Of Doctor Rust_

 The not so good Doctor still found himself reviewing the footage of his robot’s destruction, while tracking the progress of the heroes approach to his lair. A lesser mind might have found it difficult, but not him, for he was Doctor Rust and an entire city crumbled at the whims of his mind. The Doctor was focused on his chalkboard rapidly firing off equations on the board his hand hardly matching the speed of his mind. As he devised plotted and schemed.

When he finished a honey colored grin spread across his face and he swept back his wild unkempt frazzled white hair behind his head and looked at his reflection cast by a polished chrome lab table. He paused taking in his own crinkled and stained labcoat, the scraggle of fluff along his neck, chin, and face. A scowl darkened his face and he flipped the table running off muttering "Not presentable enough. Must find the emitter."

 

_Earth 8008-The Champions_

 

Static followed the radio waves like a beacon, and they lead him to a massive old factory, the facade held a sign that was probably white at some point but was now a dingy shade of yellow and slowly began to peel at the corners. The blocky dark orange ornamental lettering was still legible though and read: Rustovitch and Sons Automobiles. The building itself had started to crumble and bits of brick had  fallen away. Static descended letting the manhole cover come rest on the ground, the sound of concrete grinding against metal was audible for a moment before it was followed by a thwip noise he had come to associate with Spider-Man’s webs.  

Spider-Man landed next to Static without a sound, and turned to him. “You sure this is the right place?” 

Virgil looked back and chuckled “My secret lair is an abandoned gas station. Looks can be deceiving.” The stomps of Devil Dinosaur could be heard and underneath his earth moving steps they could hear the sound of Blue Beetle’s jetpack. Ms. Marvel made no sounds as she approached and once more the heroes were joined together. Devil Dinosaur lowered his head to the ground and Moon Girl stepped down while Ms. Marvel reduced her height to normal size and Blue Beetle lowered the output of the thrusters on his backpack.

“So what’s the play?” He asked he came to a stop on the ground in front of the assembled heroes. There was a pause as a very similar line of thought crossed all of their minds. Their hastily assembled team needed a field leader. 

”Well.” Static replied. “I think we can all agree that rushing in guns blazing would be the worst idea. Considering whoever’s behind this has home court advantage.” Static couldn’t be sure since Spider-Man’s and Blue Beetle’s costumes covered their bodies, but he was pretty certain that he had seniority out of all the assembled heroes. Putting the younger heroes in a place where they had to make the life or decisions didn’t sit well with him. He paused waiting to see if there were any objections to him continuing. “I’m proposing two two man teams. Two of us charge in through the front door, get this person’s attention, let em mount their defenses and other two go in quiet like while we have the main force distracted. See if you can get the drop on this guy.” 

Spider-Man didn’t see any immediate issues with the plan except that two two person teams undoubtedly meant that a certain genius grade schooler was getting excluded. Which he didn’t altogether consider a negative. “I can do stealth.” He activated his camouflage and his body went translucent and he almost entirely faded from sight before becoming fully visible.

“Dude, how many superpowers do you have?” Blue Beetle asked incredulously. 

“Many. I got them by beheading all the insect themed super beings. There can only be one.” He whispered menacingly at Blue Beetle and Jaime dutifully ignored the Scarab’s suggestion to incinerate him on the spot. Kamala rolled her eyes and spoke.

“I can shrink down to the size of a rat so I shouldn’t have any issues sneaking in either so I’ll go with Spider-Man.” The Blue Beetled nodded his head.

“I’m not exactly built for stealth ops so I’ll kick in the front door,”

“And I’ll join you.” Static replied. 

Moon Girl had remained quiet the entire time patiently waiting to see if they would meet her expectations or not and as she assumed they did and hat quietly excluded her. She had ordered her thoughts for quite some time picking her arguments and if that failed she’d simply save the day on her own. She opened her mouth and before she could speak Static  held up his hand. “I have a pretty good idea of what you’re gonna say, but just listen. If this thing goes wrong we’re gonna need someone to save us, and I think you’ve got smarts.” He paused casting a glance at Devil Dinosaur who loomed overhead “and muscle to do it. Give us twenty-five minutes okay? If we’re not out by then come get us. Get us out of whatever traps we might have walked into. Can you do that?”

Moon Girl knew she was being pandered to and she hated that it was working.There was something reassuring and honest in Static’s voice and his reasoning was sound and illogical if something went wrong and a trap was sprung she was the most equipped to disarm  it. She looked down at her watch and set a timer for twenty-five minutes and held it up to Static. “The clock starts as soon as you go through that door.”

 

_Earth -8008 Static and The Blue Beetle in: The Lair Of Doctor Rust! Zero Minutes_

 

With a slightly more flashy than necessary burst of electromagnetic energy static forced open the door to the factory and hurled it inward. The interior was much cleaner than he might have expected, There wasn’t a spec of dust to be found and the factory floor was well lit with assembly lines churning away producing robots. Seeing this he decided to start making noise. He reached out with his senses and with his hands gripped at the assembly line and tore apart the machinery ripping it apart. Getting the idea Blue Beetle added to the destruction firing his beetle blasters into the inactive but assembled robots.  

The factory went dark and for just a moment the only source of light was Static's purple crackling energy arcing between his fingertips, and then the darkness was sliced apart by beams of light illuminating the factory catwalk above them. Standing in the center of their illumination was a man in a brown lab coat. He had wild white hair that stuck out in every direction before being wrangled into a ponytail held in place by what appeared to be a cog. He smiled broadly flashing a mouth full of honey colored teeth and looked down on Blue Beetle and Static his milky irises darting between them. “Where are the rest of you? I counted five little heroes and one big red biologically inaccurate dinosaur. I know the dinosaur and little girl are still outside. Where are the other two?” His voice was hoarse and harsh, like the act of talking caused him pain or he didn’t use his voice very often

“They ran away to Vegas.” Static replied sarcastically. “But we’re perfectly equipped to be your dancing partners.”

Blue Beetle held up his blasters and pointed them at the man.“And we’ve got your corsage all picked out! I hope you’re ready to go to the prom!” There was a brief pause as static and the old man stared at the Blue Beetle. 

“Banter isn’t his strong suit is it?” The old man asked. 

“Apparently not.” Static replied. “More importantly, who the hell are you?”

The old man paused again and he gazed down at the heroes images of his past flashing back and forth between his field of vision. Remembering the last group of heroes to stand against him. He shut his eyes and silenced the memories. “I am Doctor Andrei Ivan Rustovitch, but you may call me Doctor Rust. You must not be from around here if you don’t know my name, but without hesitation you track me down and destroy my creations. Why?”

“Well maybe it’s all the property damage you’ve caused and the fact that the city is empty and devoid people. We thought you might have a little something to do with that.” It was Static who replied, but the Blue Beetle had his eyes trained on the doctor. He was content to let Static talk to the man since he appeared to be much better at it. At the first instance of trouble Jaime was going  to take his shot. He had a bad feeling about this whole situation.

“Ah yes. My creations do tend scare the people of the city. I’m sure they evacuated to somewhere, but that’s not important. You’re here and I couldn’t be happier to have you with me. It’s been too long and I’ve been so bored. I’ve whipped up some surprises for you all. Now granted I didn’t have much time so they’re not perfect. But you’ll see!” The few intact robots remaining got off the assembly line and marched towards the heroes. Jaime fired his blasters and they struck true. Static found himself facing a bit of a challenge. He tried to encapsulate them in his power, but found that they couldn’t be magnetized. Switching gears (Damn he missed Ritchie.) he fired raw electrical energy at them but found that his supply of energy was depleting.

The arcing bolts ripped into the robots filling the room with the scent of burning ozone and plastic. Well, that explained why he couldn’t magnetize them. The brunt of the robot force focused on Blue Beetle surrounding. He had decided to transform one of his hands into a blade and use the other as blaster slicing any that managed to get close. He held them at bay before to his horror the robots melted away into a viscous gray goo and shot forward at him. It clung to his armor and tried to seep in. Luckily for him the suit was air tight and had no exposed points. Well almost none. The goo forced itself down his mouth. 

The goo was composed of millions of microscopic robots known as nanites they raced down his mouth and burrowed into his bloodstream merging with the Scarab’s systems and infecting it with a powerful virus. The Scarab quickly unleashed it’s antibodies but the infection was seemingly endless, but Jaime Reyes did not scream. He shut his mouth closing off the entry point and aimed his blasters to wound the Doctor but found his arm wildly jerked in the opposite direction and his blaster was trained on Static. 

_“Khaji-Da! What’s going on!”_ He reached across their mental link and spoke directly to the scarab..

_“We are under attack Jaime Reyes. The nanites are attempting to assume control. I am purging them, but they appear to be self replicating and self repairing. Estimated purge time: Twelve Hours.”_

Jaime watched in horror as his blaster charged and fired into the chest of Static. 

 

_Earth 8008- Ms. Marvel and Spider-Man in: The Home Of Doctor Andrei Rustovitch. Ten Minutes_

 

Sneaking into the lair hadn’t been a problem for either of them. Spider-Man activated his camouflage and climbed to the top of the building. Ms. Marvel had meanwhile shrunk down to the size of a rat and sat on his shoulder. Once they had reached the top she returned to normal size and he deactivated his camouflage. They found an unlocked skylight and after peering through the glass and seeing what appeared to be a messy laboratory they decided it was safe to drop down. Spider-Man undid the latch on the window and pulled it open. He almost flinched as the hinges groaned from disuse. He wiped away the the dust on the leg of his costume and then jumped down into the room. He landed in a silent crouch as a Spider-Person tended to do and felt his feet a few centimeters into the carpeted floor. 

Ms. Marvel Stretched her legs down to the floor and let them lower the rest of her body down into the room like an elevator. Her nostrils were assaulted by the rampant scent of body odor. Reflexively she covered her nose and even though his mask filtered some of the stench Spider-Man found his stomach turned by the odor. “Okay” He said. “So we’re in the home of an evil dude who doesn’t like baths.” 

Having gotten slightly more used to the smell Ms. Marvel was able to take in more of their surroundings. The first thing she noticed was that most of the room’s walls were composed entirely out of chalkboards. The black slates of calcium had been bolted onto almost every inch of the walls and where they weren’t she was able to see ancient brickwork. The chalkboards had notes written on them detailing the construction of machines, but they repeated over and over again on each section of the blackboards almost as if whoever had written them was either desperately trying to remember them or simply forgot that they had already started writing in the first place. There was a table in the center of the room on it and around it on the floor were the gutted remains of a robot. The metallic silvery cogs and chrome lugnuts contrasted sharply with the rooms faded brown carpet.

Spider-Man felt a tingling sensation in the back of his skull. Time slowed as he looked for the source of danger. His first thought was the robot on the table in the center of the room, but he slowly picked out the scent of smoke underneath the aroma of body odor. He looked over his shoulder and noticed a door behind them. He turned his body and walked over noticing the scent of smoke grew stronger with every step, putting his hand on the knob and pulled it open. Stepping through the doorway he found himself in what appeared to be living quarters. The room was tiny and contained bed and bookshelf against one wall and a stove and refrigerator against the other. And directly across from him was a sink with a table in front of it.

The stove held a smoking pot. He stepped over and turned off the eyes on the stove and stepped away from it. Ms. Marvel had followed him closely behind having smelled the smoke when he opened the door. “This person is seriously the most irresponsible supervillain I’ve ever seen.” Spider-Man spoke up and Ms. Marvel looked over at him frowning. 

“I think there’s a lot more going on here than them being just irresponsible.” She walked over to the bookcase. It contained a collection frames. Some of them contained newspaper clippings, and others held photos the one that drew her immediate attention was a framed diploma, she read it aloud. “Andrei Ivan Rustovitch Having Demonstrated Ability by Original Research Summa Cum Laude with distinction in Robotic Engineering the Degree Of Doctor of Philosophy"

“Well,” Spider-Man replied, “That confirms my evil genius theory.” He joined her by the bookshelf, his eyes drawn by a framed newspaper clipping. ‘DR. RUST BETRAYS THE CHAMPIONS’ was the headline and slowly the pieces began to fall into the place as he continued to read the article. “So Dr. Rust used to be apart of a group called The Champions. It looks like they were superheroes and he betrayed them.”

“And eventually he killed them.” Ms. Marvel pointed at another framed story headlined ‘THE DEATH OF THE CHAMPIONS’ It chronicled how a battle with their former Ally lead to the death of The Champions it lead directly to their obituaries. It was their names that made her pause. “These heroes. Listen to their names. Electro Volt, Sapphire Scarab, Spider-Darkly and Doctor Giganta.”

“That is uncomfortably familiar.” Spider-Man found his spine chilled as he read along and the one to one comparisons were made between this group called The Champions and the group of heroes he had found himself allied with today. “Do you think he brought us here? Like replacement gold-fish for his old team?”

“No.” Ms. Marvel was certain of that much. “This guy can’t even remember to turn the stove off or take a bath. I don’t think he’s behind this. Though it does raise a point. I think this guy needs help.”

“If by help you mean a fist across his jaw then absolutely.”

“No.” She sighed. “Look at this place. Smell it. This man is barely taking care of himself. I think he might be suffering from some form of dementia, he forgot to turn his stove off and rewrote the same notes over and over. His robots never actually hurt anyone. It seems like he might be more a danger to himself than anyone else.”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t really matter” Spider-Man replied callously “This guy murdered his own team, and just going by the age on these pictures I have to think it happened before his possible dementia set in. Now supposing you’re right and he is suffering from dementia then it feels a lot like to me that he’s just more dangerous.”

She stared into the white opaque lenses of his mask and the dark black and vibrant red of her costume. She had teamed up with a Spider-Man before and he had been different to this one. Only now did she begin to get a glimpse of the man underneath the mask and just how different he was from the traditional Spider-Man. She wasn’t sure how she felt about those differences. “We’re superheroes and this man needs our help, that means we help him, no matter what. I’m gonna do that with or without you. We have to at least try to talk to him.” But she knew where she stood. She was going to do what she felt was right. 

For just a moment Spider-Man was reminded of his mother. He remembered when she would talk about about her shifts at the hospital. She treated criminals and killers with the same care as lawyers and anyone else. He sighed not allowing anymore memories of her to well up. “Fine. We’ll try it your way, but the first hint I get that things are going wrong I’m gonna knock his crazy ass out.”

They were interrupted by the screams of Static.

 

_Earth-8008 Static and Blue Beetle in: The Lair Of Doctor Fifteen Minutes_

 

Getting hit in the chest by Blue Beetle’s blaster hurt Static more than he imagined it would. He was expecting it to burn him, but it was more like getting hit by a truck. He was immediately reminded of Green Lantern and his hard light constructs, as the wind was knocked out of him forcing the air out of his lungs he postulated that Blue Beetle’s weapon operated on a similar principle. The thought did nothing dull the pain that was blossoming across his ribs. He landed back first. 

“Sorry Bro!” Blue Beetle watched as Static hit the ground clutching at his sides. “I’m not in control! My suits being hacked!”

“Noted.” Static groaned from his position on the ground and rolled over onto his side before getting to his feet. He reached out once more with his senses and tapped into the electromagnetic forces around him, he could sense all the metal and electrical currents. There were blank spots in his senses where the plastic robots approached. There was plenty of metal to use, but the confined nature of the space didn’t give him much room to use it given how large the machinery was. 

He looked over at the Blue Beetle and watched him struggle, it looked like he was at war with himself. The armor was shifting and mashing between weapons. His right hand seemed to have settled on a large cannon. The barrel was at least three times the size of the blaster he had used to shoot Static in the chest and going by the brilliant blue light coming from the barrel the cannon was charging. Blue Beetle’s left hand was normal and he was doing his best to keep the cannon pointed at the ground and presumably away from any living beings. It was at that moment though while his cannon was pointed at the ground beneath his feet that the plastic robots chose to converge on the Blue Beetle. They ran right past Static focusing their entire five bot attack force on Blue Beetle. They grappled with the cannon arm desperately trying to force it away from the ground. It was then that Static was struck by the full force of an idea and reached out with his electromagnetic senses.

Jaime was not having the best time in the world, the nanobots infesting his body and Beetle suit weren’t making his life easy. The Scarab was doing it’s best to fight back, releasing it’s anti-bodies and destroying the tiny robots wreaking havoc on it’s systems but it’s focus was split between that and regulating the weapons system. Well, it was trying to regulate the weapon’s system, but the massive Beetle Cannon that was his right arm indicated that it was failing. Jaime did his best to fight back and keep the weapon down. After shooting Static in the chest he couldn’t exactly trust himself, being invaded like that wasn’t an enjoyable experience. It didn’t get any better when the robots started attacking him and beating him down. They were throwing punches and kicks at him, and his armor was more than capable of cushioning the blows, but deep down he could feel it, he and Khaji-Da were losing the fight. Normally he couldn’t get it to shut up, and now the silence was deafening.

So when his arms once more began to move of their own accord he assumed that once again his agency was being taken away by the tiny robots infecting his body. He realized that when the Beetle Cannon turned onto the robots attacking him and fired, he was only about half right. The Cannon had spit out a ball of blue hot plasma and engulfed two of the robots attacking him. It fired with a loud thump followed by the scent of incinerated and roasted plastic.  His cannon arm and the rest of his body was engulfed in a crackling purple aura. The energy flowed around him and anyway from his body in long strands leading right back to the hands of Static like strings on a puppet. Twin monstrous grins split across the faces of Static and Blue Beetle.

“I can’t believe that actually worked!” They exclaimed in unison. What followed was pure teamwork. Through his power seeping the circuitry of the Beetle Suit he began to understand it’s workings. It was like no machine he had ever touched and the way it responded to his power he began to wonder if it was alive. Jaime and Khaji-Da had been fighting a war on two fronts. Khaji was focusing the full force of it’s attention on the invaders from within while Jaime focused entirely on dealing with the adversaries from without. The splitting of their collective focus had created a gap in their ability to function where the Scarab had once controlled their weapons in response to Jaime’s imagination, the hacking of the Scarab’s software had resulted in an inability to reach one another. 

Jaime could only assume that as his hands transformed into his Beetle Blades and he turned to face their remaining three robot adversaries Static was somehow bridging that gap. He shelved the thought it was time to fight. Static pushed and pulled with his power and focused on getting the Beetle suit to move. Precision control had never exactly been Static’s strong suit, so the result was that the Beetle was hardly moving with the poise and grace of a warrior, but as he made the Blue Beetle swing his blade and bisect robot he figured it didn’t matter as long as they got the job done. 

As they worked together to end his creations Doctor Rust could only watch with glee. He marveled at the way they worked together to end the threats he had manufactured for them. It was euphoric and deep down he felt more alive than he had in years, and couldn’t help but root for them.They had finished dismantling his forces the broken and ripped apart remains lay at their feet, but Dr. Rust was not worried and he spared no time activating another final countermeasure.

At the feet of Static and Blue Beetle lay the pieces of the machines they had destroyed. The tendrils of Static’s power still connected to Blue Beetle’s armor. So when tiny nano robots that comprised the broken robot parts disentangled themselves and moved individually in a grey massive swarm crawling across the ground, like a scuttling fleet of insects they went for Static’s hands. They wrapped his hands in their plastic bodies and for good measure the swarm began cocooning around his body gripping him tightly as he futilely tried to discharge energy, their plastic bodies acting as a natural insulator. 

Jaime had never thought of the Beetle suit as a coffin before, but in that moment he felt Static’s powers leave him, he was acutely aware of how trapped he felt in his suit. It wasn’t fighting him anymore, but he couldn’t control it, and he couldn’t hear Khaji-Da. The worst thing though was that he couldn’t move and he remained horrifyingly aware of everything happening around him.

Static couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being buried alive, his electro-senses were cut off, and the robots clung to his body so tightly he couldn’t move. The machines had him bound tightly, but he stayed calm. Ms. Marvel and Spider-Man were still in the building. He kicked himself for not making sure they’d established a signal beforehand, Batman would have been disappointed. He went with a tried and true method and screamed.

 

_The Champions (Minus Two in One) in The Lair Of Doctor Rust! Twenty Minutes_

 

Ms. Marvel was dedicated to ensuring that things were done by the book and that Dr. Rustovitch got the help he needed. Spider-Man was far less optimistic but still, he had given his word to try things her way. So he crept along the ceiling with his camouflage on and got into the position should the need for him to end everything with a quick punch to the face arise. The thought made him pause, when had violence become his first solution?

Ms. Marvel was standing on a catwalk overlooking the factory floor. She could see Dr. Rustovitch standing just a few feet away from her, Static and Blue Beetle were out, and she knew things needed to end quickly. She paused debating whether or not Spider-Man had the right idea. The thought passed as she got closer to the wild looking old man in his brown lab coat. She called out to him not wanting to take him by surprise. “Dr. Rustovitch.”

The Doctor turns round to face her, and in the chaotic, jumbled mind of Doctor Rustovitch ghost of his past begin to layer over the present, and though his eyes saw Ms. Marvel his brain interprets her image as that of a woman he once knew. A woman he loved, and a woman he murdered. “Dr. Giganta” he replied.

Ms. Marvel stopped as she recalled that name from the newspaper article she had found in his office. “Dr. Rustovitch, that’s not my name I’m Ms. Marvel, and I’m not who you think I am. Your mind is  not well and you need help, please let me help you.” She took a tentative step forward and a shout of fury exploded from the Doctor’s mouth. 

“How dare you! After all this time you break into my home and insult my intelligence? I thought you might have more decency than this. You disgust me.” He turned his head to look down at Static and Blue Beetle. “I spared Electro-Volt and Sapphire Scarab. You are quickly making me regret that action. I still think fondly on what we once shared and hold a shred of affection for you, but if you continue to insult me I will kill you.” 

Spider-Man was perched on the ceiling, and had listened to every word of the conversation, and he was more than fed up with waiting. He could tell that there was something wrong with the old man, but he didn’t care. He dropped from the ceiling and spun his body around as he extended his leg to give his kick more momentum. He was careful to hold back, and  minimized his force as the leg made contact with the Doctor’s head. To his and Ms. Marvel’s surprise his foot passed through the man’s head like he wasn’t there. He landed on the catwalk, and Doctor Rust turned to look at him. “Ah. Spider-Darkly, the great betrayer, so fast, so agile, and so strong. You didn’t think I’d risk a brawl with you did you? This is a hologram, my real body is tucked away safely.” He looked down at Spider-Man and stared at him with a level of malice that he couldn’t comprehend the motivation for. “Now that you’re all here it’s time to begin.”

The man’s form winked out of existence and all along the building at the windows and doors and vents heavy metal shutters slammed down blocking the entrances and exits. Spider-Man was alarmed, but the lack of spider-sense reassured him that he wasn’t in any immediate danger. He was right about himself not, being in any immediate danger, but the temperatures in the room began to drop rapidly frost coming from his mouth. Ms. Marvel had started trembling as it did. Shaking and shuddering violently. She looked at him and he could see the worry, “M-my body isn’t good in cold. P-powers not great with freezing.” It wasn’t exactly a definitive answer, but it gave him enough to go off of. His first thought was to web up the few open vents in the room, but he realized that’d probably stifle the flow of oxygen. Instead he swung over to the door and tapped on the heavy sheet of metal. It was at least six inches thick, he figured he could lift it. Not able to slide his fingers underneath he pressed his fingers against it and activated his clinging ability and lifted with his legs. It took most of his strength, but the door budged and inched upwards he groaned from the effort, but absolutely could not give up.

From an unseen location Dr. Rust watched bitterly, but his voice filled the room and all the heroes could hear his voice. “Now you try to steal my victory eh Spider-Darkly? I used to admire your tenacity old friend, hell I plain used to admire you. Then you betrayed me, you knew what she meant to me, you even encouraged me. I think that’s why I hate you more, why you’re the one I’m happy to kill. Goodbye Spider-Darkly. From the corners of the room two gun turrets dropped down and pointed at Spider-Man. His spider-senses gave enough of a warning to dodge the first volley. He jumped toward a wall and kicked off bouncing away. His spider-sense warned him again and before he twisted in the air to dodge more bullets time slowed as his reflexes flared and he gained hyper awareness. If he moved the bullets would pass him and hit Static. He sighed and shut eyes as lead slugs pierced his body. 

 

_Lunella Lafayette AKA Moon Girl Earth-8008 Twenty Three Minutes_    

 

Lunella had never been one to sit idly by and wait for her turn. So from the minute Static and Blue Beetle stepped in she had started tinkering, she thought it prudent to assume that the structure had some unseen defences. Without needing to be told Devil Dinosaur went and made himself useful carrying, over remains from robots and dropping them at her feet. She sat down and folded her legs and got to work. Time ticked by and at some point Devil Dinosaur had coiled around her, his giant head on the lookout for threats.

When the metal shutters on the doors and windows slammed shut they both looked up in sync, Lunella sighed while Devil Dinosaur growled. She put her tools away and held up her newest creation. It was constructed from a fisher-price toy megaphone and was a vibrant yellow color. There was a digital screen affixed to the top of it, and the whole thing appeared to be held in place by duct tape and wiring. It wasn’t her prettiest work, but it was serviceable. Devil Dinosaur got up and uncoiled himself from around her. She pointed at the factory and he got the message charging forward, his skull hit the brick and mortar and battered it apart revealing a wall of thick metal underneath which had only been dented by his skull. Confused he heabutted it again, and found that he had managed to make a slightly bigger dent. Lunella watched, bemusedly before activating her device. She pointed the megaphone at the building and and pressed the beep button. It released a loud blast of sound and the waves hit the building. The screen gave her a sonar layout of the building and showed four heartbeats in various states of distress. 

More interestingly though was the underground structure and the beating human heart underneath. She stared at the map and noted that the manhole cover near her appeared to be connected to the structure. “Hm. Devil.” The Dinosaur looked up from it’s new adversary and she pointed at the manhole cover he walked over and with a mighty stomp of his foot broke through the pavement and cracked open the earth. The scent of sewage wafted up and it made her nostalgic for her lab back home. She forced the sentiment out of her mind and turned to Devil Dinosaur. “Keep hitting the wall, you’ll break through it eventually. Save them okay? I’m gonna find who’s doing this and put a stop to it.” Devil Dinosaur would growl in response and lower his head and gently nuzzled her. “I’ll be fine you big baby, they need your help a lot more than I do. Now go.” Devil backed away and turned to face the wall and once more battered his heads against it, slowly breaking through.

Lunella walked over to the newly formed hole in the ground and climbed down the latter. She reached into her bag and pulled out a flashlight, clicking it on revealed what she expected from a sewer. There was raw nastiness up to her calves, but along the ceiling was a collection of power cables. Lunella followed them to a doorway in the sewer. Once more she was reminded of her own lab back home, she didn't need sonar to tell her there was someone waiting on the other side of the door, could hear them muttering under their breath. She put a hand on the door handle and pulled it open as gently as she could. The door didn't see much use so it creaked open, but the man sitting in his chair watching the array of monitors didn't seem notice. She poked her head in before stepping through the door. She looked around the cramped room. 

The man was sitting in his chair looking at a wall devoted mostly to monitors in front of him was an elaborate control panel. His eyes were glued to the screens, they all depicted the inside the factory above them. Every feed on the screen was focused on Spider-Man. He lay on the ground bleeding out. Lunella felt her breath hitch, but she remained calm and analyzed and assessed. The blood was coming from his shoulder and he still appeared to be conscious. That reassured her, opposite of the wall was a framed photograph Lunella studied it and noted the similarities between her new team. There was an electric man, a spider, a blue bug, a giant lady and a genius. It was accompanied by a newspaper clipping reading: Dr Rust Kills The Champions 

“Ah. I get it now. You're supposed to be me. I haven't told them this yet, but I think we were brought here for a reason looks like we're acting as counterparts to your team.” Lunella spoke and the man jumped he turned around in his chair. He was frail and pale, his body reminded her of a skeleton. His skin was pulled tight against him and many of his bones visible. He was wearing a brown bathrobe and wore nothing more than tank top and some boxers. Confusions danced across his face followed by shame. He shuffled to close his bathrobe.

“Young lady.” His voice had a hoarse and dry tinge like he wasn't used to speaking. “I don't know how you got here, but you need to leave this place at once.” There was an obnoxious boom above them and the monitors showed the wall of the factory above them exploded inward as Devil Dinosaur let loose a victorious war and stepped through the the hole. 

“Nothing.” She sighed. “Would make me happier, but those are my friends you're torturing and I need you to stop. My Dinosaur has already broken through you've lost.” 

“Friends? Child those are The Champions, and they've come to finally destroy me after all these years. Have they sunk so low to recruit a child?”  He watched the monitors as Devil ducked low and started scooping the heroes into his mouth And ferrying them out. “Though you have an admittedly formidable pet.”

“I understand you might have the sensibilities of a golden age supervillain, but I need you to cobble together the vestiges of what I'm sure was at one point a mighty intellect and think for a second.” She pointed at the wall behind her and it's newspaper clipping. “That says that a long time ago you killed the Champions. So think for a minute. How can The Champions be invading if you killed them a long time ago.”

The gears were slow to turn in the mind of Dr. Rust. He looked back and forth between the screen and the photo and slowly the pillars of his delusion began to crumble. Decades of history flooded back to him, and he remembered a night that left the city in mourning and pushed him into seclusion. The feeling of bodies going to ash in his palms. “My god. I didn't want to hurt your friends. I just thought of them as a challenge, but I got confused and so much rage filled me. She seemed so much like her and he just like him.”

“It seems like you've gotten some clarity. So now while you're lucid, I need you to stand down.” She unclipped a pair of handcuffs from her belt and tossed them at the Doctor. “I don't think you wanted to hurt my friends, but the fact remains that you did. You’re clearly suffering from delusions or dementia. As a woman of science I don't believe in punching people to solve problems, but you've done a lot of damage so if you resist and try to fight I will rain down the fury of my Devil Dinosaur on you.”

 

_The Champions-Earth 8008_

 

It hadn't taken long for the paramedics and police to arrive and when they did, they found a group haggard looking teenagers in costumes and one smug looking little girl sitting on a curb with Dr. Rust, oh and there was a dinosaur there too. Stepping out of a squad car that read CCPD was a man dressed in tan pants, and a white shirt. His gut hung over his waist and he was balding. The look of utter confusion on his face almost made Static chuckle. Static stood up and greeted him. 

“Nice to meet you. I'm Static.” he extended his hand for the man to shake. 

“Commissioner Bradley, Crimson City Police Department.” The man got over his shock and took his hand. He looked past static and at the frail man sitting on the curb. “Is that him? Is that Dr. Rust?” 

“As far as I can tell? Yeah that's your guy.” It was the Blue Beetle who got the frail Doctor to his feet and passed him over to the Commissioner. A few more cars pulled up and the officers who got out hesitated to touch the man, but the commissioner gave them a sharp look and they took him. Supporting him as they put him into a squad car. 

“You've all done this city a tremendous service. The people don't have to live in fear of him and his robots anymore. It's you like the caught the Boogeyman. Everybody knows what you've done, the boys at the stations who'd been watching the CCTV set up a live stream. We all know who our heroes are.”

“As long as everybody is safe commissioner.” He turned his head towards Spider-Man. The paramedics were already tending to him, the bullet had went straight through and by some combination of luck and his insane reflexes it hadn't hit anything important. They worked to staunch the bleeding and patch up the hole in his shoulder. It wasn't lost on Static that he had taken a bullet for him. He turned back to the commissioner. “Just make sure that he doesn't ever get loose.”

“And make sure that he gets help.” Ms. Marvel stepped over looking no less worse than when they started. She was grateful for healing factors. “I'm not a Doctor, but I'm pretty sure he's got dementia. That doesn't excuse everything he's done, but it doesn't change that he needs help.” 

The Commissioner sighed. “Kid. The courts are gonna crucify this guy, and frankly he deserves it. Considering what he did to the last group of supers we had? He deserves it.” He looked her in the eye. “Though that kinda begs the question. Who are you guys? I was just a beat cop when The Champions were around, but you're all so similar.” He looked at Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. “Well mostly similar? Are you their kids or something?”

Static wished he were Batman. If he were Batman he could have vanished into thin air when the Commissioner looked away. “Well. I don't know about that. I do know that we're all pretty hungry, what's good to eat around here?”

 

_The Champions-Earth 8008-Crimson City- Bruce Lee’s Endless Chinese Buffet._

 

In an empty restaurant sat The Champions around a round table. Static sat with the Blue Beetle on his right and on his was Ms. Marvel and on hers was Spider-Man and on his was Moon Girl and on hers was Static. None of them were speaking and none of them  were eating despite the fact that there was a ton of Chinese food in front of them. 

Spider-Man couldn't help but think the whole thing was a little funny. Taking back a ciy from an Evil Genius? No problem. Having a meal together? Now everyone clams up and gets awkward. He reached up and took off his mask. “I'm not sure what's harder to believe. That on this world Bruce Lee is still alive and he runs a successful chain of Chinese buffets or that they're willing to let us eat here for free forever. Back home on my earth heroes getting sponsorships was frowned upon.”

“Dude.” Blue Beetle spoke up. “Did you just unmask in public?” 

“Well.” Static pulled off the straps of his mask and took off his goggles. “It's not like any of us have secret to identities protect here.” 

Jaime considered that for a moment and had his helmet retrac back into the Scarab. He had gotten control of his suit back quickly enough after Moon Girl got Dr. Rust to turn off his defenses. He could feel the rest of his armor, and it almost felt heavy on his body, but no one else appeared to have the luxury of retracting their suit into a scarab on their back. 

Kamala removed her mask and started eating and stuffing dumplings in her mouth. It wasn't pretty, but she needed fuel. There came a point where she was acutely aware everyone present staring. “Healing ability. Metabolism. I need lots of calories and like I haven't eaten in way too long.” 

“That makes sense.” Lunella wasn't hungry and there were more important things to discuss. “So. I've been thinking and it occurs to me that I'm not sure how to send you all home, much less myself. No. It's more accurate to say that even if I could get one of my ideas to work I'm not sure where I'd get the power to make it happen.” 

Virgil let a few sparks jump between his fingers. “Just how much power are we talking?” 

“Exponentially more than it takes to keep this city running.” She sighed. “So I think for the time being we're stuck here.” 

“Then we should probably stick together.” Virgil replied. 

Miles considered it for a bit, he had some experiences with teams. The Ultimates namely, it hadn't left the best impression on him, but the people at the table felt different. “Well I can't deny the safety in numbers, but do you mean officially as in like a super team?” 

“Like an Avengers?”

“Like a Justice League?”

Kamala and Jaime spoke at the same time and shared a set of confused looks before Virgil's voice called them back to attention.

“Well. I'm not saying we need to have a space station orbiting the moon and look down on everyone like gods, and if all you can do is avenge something that just means you failed to save it, but for this city I think we can do more. I think we can be their Champions.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, leave a comment.


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